TY - JOUR

T1 - The Role of Narratives in Transferring Rational Choice Models into Political Science

AU - Quack, Alexandra

AU - Herfeld, Catherine

N1 - Funding Information: Correspondence may be addressed to Alexandra Quack, University of Zurich (alexandra .quack@uzh.ch), and Catherine Herfeld, University of Zurich (catherine.herfeld@uzh.ch). We are grateful for the comments we received from the audience of the narratives workshop, in particular Harro Maas, the audience at the 2021 HES conference, Sharon Crasnow, and three anonymous referees. We especially want to thank Mary Morgan and Tom Stapleford for their support throughout. This research has been supported by the University of Zurich’s University Research Priority Program “Equality of Opportunity.” Publisher Copyright: © 2023 by Duke University Press.

PY - 2023/6/1

Y1 - 2023/6/1

N2 - “translation” of the orig i nal models for each of those fields. While this pro cess is domain-spe cific and depends on the epistemic goals within a field, translation can generally be described as the way in which the highly abstract and mathemat ical schemes of rational choice approaches were mod i fied to construct models that could be applied to spe cific target systems in fundamentally different domains. In this article, we ana lyze one instance of such a translation process by study ing the initial transfer of rational choice mod els into polit ical science. As the polit ical scientist William Riker was a major protagonist in push ing the adop tion of game-the o retic mod els in polit i cal sci ence (Herfeld and Doehne 2019), we focus on his attempts to translate game the ory for polit ical science in his sem i nal book The Theory of Political Coalitions (1962). We show that to overcome a set of chal lenges in the process of translation, Riker not only mod ified the origi nal game schemes theoretically and conceptually but also drew on narratives. By fulfilling dif ferent roles in the translation of game-theoretic models—in constructing, apply ing, and test ing the model—these nar ra tives contrib uted in impor tant ways to the transfer. The role of nar ratives in science has recently become an explicit concern in history and phi losophy of science (e.g., Morgan and Wise 2017; Morgan, Hajek, and Berry 2022). Among var ious proposals, the suggestion that nar ratives and for mal models complement each other serves as our pri mary background for discussing the role of nar ratives in the transfer of game-the oretic models (e.g., Currie and Sterelny 2017; Hartmann 1999; Morgan 2001, 2007, 2012; Rosales 2017; Wise 2011, 2017). In our analysis, we rely on a minimal definition of narrative as a representation of a connected sequence of events, which identifies its defin ing feature by contrasting a nar rative with a chron icle: a nar rative, unlike a chron icle, also draws con nections between the events that they both order into a sequence (e.g., Morgan and Wise 2017; Ryan 2007). Morgan (2007) explores how narratives can complement mathematical mod els by discussing their role in the use of game-the oretic mod els in econom ics. One impor tant role Morgan identifies is that nar ratives enable the applica tion of game-the o retic mod els in eco nom ics because they allow economists to reason with the model about an economic phenome­ non by matching the for mal game model with its target. Focusing on the prisoner’s dilemma game, Morgan (2007: 174−75) argues that in matching the model with its target, these nar ratives match a “model sit uation”—or what she, inspired by Popper’s sit u a tional logic, also calls “types of.

AB - “translation” of the orig i nal models for each of those fields. While this pro cess is domain-spe cific and depends on the epistemic goals within a field, translation can generally be described as the way in which the highly abstract and mathemat ical schemes of rational choice approaches were mod i fied to construct models that could be applied to spe cific target systems in fundamentally different domains. In this article, we ana lyze one instance of such a translation process by study ing the initial transfer of rational choice mod els into polit ical science. As the polit ical scientist William Riker was a major protagonist in push ing the adop tion of game-the o retic mod els in polit i cal sci ence (Herfeld and Doehne 2019), we focus on his attempts to translate game the ory for polit ical science in his sem i nal book The Theory of Political Coalitions (1962). We show that to overcome a set of chal lenges in the process of translation, Riker not only mod ified the origi nal game schemes theoretically and conceptually but also drew on narratives. By fulfilling dif ferent roles in the translation of game-theoretic models—in constructing, apply ing, and test ing the model—these nar ra tives contrib uted in impor tant ways to the transfer. The role of nar ratives in science has recently become an explicit concern in history and phi losophy of science (e.g., Morgan and Wise 2017; Morgan, Hajek, and Berry 2022). Among var ious proposals, the suggestion that nar ratives and for mal models complement each other serves as our pri mary background for discussing the role of nar ratives in the transfer of game-the oretic models (e.g., Currie and Sterelny 2017; Hartmann 1999; Morgan 2001, 2007, 2012; Rosales 2017; Wise 2011, 2017). In our analysis, we rely on a minimal definition of narrative as a representation of a connected sequence of events, which identifies its defin ing feature by contrasting a nar rative with a chron icle: a nar rative, unlike a chron icle, also draws con nections between the events that they both order into a sequence (e.g., Morgan and Wise 2017; Ryan 2007). Morgan (2007) explores how narratives can complement mathematical mod els by discussing their role in the use of game-the oretic mod els in econom ics. One impor tant role Morgan identifies is that nar ratives enable the applica tion of game-the o retic mod els in eco nom ics because they allow economists to reason with the model about an economic phenome­ non by matching the for mal game model with its target. Focusing on the prisoner’s dilemma game, Morgan (2007: 174−75) argues that in matching the model with its target, these nar ratives match a “model sit uation”—or what she, inspired by Popper’s sit u a tional logic, also calls “types of.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85162738200&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1215/00182702-10438939

DO - 10.1215/00182702-10438939

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85162738200

VL - 55

SP - 549

EP - 576

JO - History of political economy

JF - History of political economy

SN - 0018-2702

IS - 3

ER -